Screen displays gray shadow initially

in windows 7 right click on the desktop and select Personalize. Then click display on the left. Choose small, medium or large.

in windows xp;
Shrinking Icons in Windows XP

• 1 Right-click on the desktop. A drop-down menu will appear on which you will click on "Properties."
  
• 2 In the "Display Properties" box, click on the "Settings" tab.
  
• 3 Slide the scale in the "Screen Resolution" box to the right to shrink the icons (and everything else that appears on the screen).
  
• 4 Click on "Apply" and then click on "OK."
  
• 5 Click on "Start" and then right-click on an empty space until a box that says "Properties" appears. Click on "Properties."
  
• 6 In the "Taskbar and Start Menu Properties" menu, click on "Customize."
  
• 7 In the box that says "Select an icon size for programs," click on "Small Icons."
  
• 8 Click on "Apply" and then click on "OK" to adjust the size.
  

Shrinking Icons in Windows Vista

• 9 Right-click on the desktop. When the drop-down menu appears, run the mouse-pointer over "View" and click on "Classic Icons." This will shrink the icons if they are set to either "Large Icons" or "Medium Icons."
  
• 10 Right-click on the desktop again and click on "Personalize."
  
• 11 On the "Personalize appearance and sounds" screen, click on "Taskbar and Start Menu" on the left side bar.
  
• 12 In the "Taskbar and Start Menu Properties" menu, click on the "Start Menu" tab.
  
• 13 Click on "Customize."
  
• 14 Find the box that says "Use large icons." If it is checked, uncheck it and click on "OK." This will shrink the Start Menu and Taskbar icons.
  

Read more: http://www.ehow.com/how_4855250_make-windows-icons-smaller.html#ixzz2ifeSGGtj

It could be that you are installing the wrong driver update.
Scan your computer with RadarSync to get the correct driver and you can use the same software to install the updates.

Just go to RadarSync.com to read more about the software.

David

Does it seem like it booted up all the way except the screen is black? If so try the steps below.

Shine a flashlight on the dark screen to see if you barelysee the icons on the desktop. If so, then the LCD Inverter is bad.

Plug in an external monitor and see if the display shows up on it. It can beany kind of monitor even the old big fat crt monitors as long as it has a vgacable to connect to your computer's vga port. If so that proves yourvideo card is ok. The video will show on most systems when you rebootwithout you having to do anything. Some systems will require you to hit the FN(Function key) + F1 thru F12. Hold down the FN key then hit the correctkey for displaying on the monitor (F1 thru F12). The correct key willnormally have CRT/LCD on it or it will have the icon of a display.

If you see no icons by shinning a flash light and the external monitor works,then your screen is bad. If you see no icons by shinning the flash lightand nothing shows on the external monitor, then most likely your video card isbad.

I would guess that the video driver has not been installed? If it has, try changing the display resolution to see if it will fill the screen.

You can obtain driver software for this machine at the following URL:

http://support.vaio.sony.eu/computing/vaio/downloads/preinstalled/index.aspx?l=en_GB&m=VGN-SZ2XP_C

90% of the time is the inverter, 10% the backlight is bad.

Please download and Run the BIOS update utility for resolve this issue. You can download it from the link below.
Download

If the problem still persist, reboot the Computer and keep tapping the F2 key when VAIO logo appears on the screen to enter BIOS mode. You can manually disable the function System and BIOS Shadowing. This will resolve the issue.
Good luck..:)

Mine did this for awhile, i took it to geek squad and they said to do a system restore and that fixed the problem.

If your inverter is good I,de say your backlight is going bad, I just replaced mine in a sony vaio and now it seams to bright.

your laptop inverter is going bad. need to replace. you can get it on ebay cheap. the inverter is responsible you the lighting up of your screen. thats the solution REMEMBER TO RATE THE SOLUTION

might be going into a powersave after it boots...try checking the power options